


heartbeat.

by artificialmeggie (ohmymeggs)



Series: blood and honey [14]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 18:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20030317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmymeggs/pseuds/artificialmeggie
Summary: When he looks back on it later, Nina isn’t sure how it started. He knows it was the night of the finale taping, and Monet had been there dripping in sequins the color of champagne, lips painted dark purple like a bruise a few days after forming. When he really considers it, that’s exactly what Monet feels like now - a days old bruise that stings when you push on it, but is so damn tempting that you can’t stop.





	heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, she wrote a song fic. (Grapefruit is a bad influence, obviously.) I’m obsessed with everything Julian Moon in regards to Ninex so “Heartbeat” is the inspiration for this piece.

_I never thought there was a god ‘til I came across you, yeah_

_You’re the most perfect combination of molecules_

_Your fingertips are like lightning and your skin is freckled with gold_

_And I don’t believe I’ve ever seen something so beautiful_

When he looks back on it later, Nina isn’t sure how it started. He knows it was the night of the finale taping, and Monet had been there dripping in sequins the color of champagne, lips painted dark purple like a bruise a few days after forming. When he really considers it, that’s exactly what Monet feels like now - a days old bruise that stings when you push on it, but is so damn tempting that you can’t stop.

They’d taken the obligatory Miss Congeniality pictures, and maybe Monet’s hand had drifted a little too low on the sheer back of Nina’s paper doll dress, but perhaps he didn’t mind too much because Monet’s hands were strong and soft, and there was just enough real champagne in his veins to enhance the effect of Monet’s sequins.

They might have ended up squeezed into a dark back corner of a dressing room at the theatre, hands on hips and waists, lips on necks and collarbones, makeup smeared, wigs knocked askew, condom hastily untucked from Monet’s bra because “if you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.” Thank god Brooke and Vanjie are still (probably) fucking because Nina knows there’s lube in Brooke’s suitcase. Probably there’s lube in _everyone’s_ suitcase, if he’s being honest, but he _knows_ Brooke. Knows where things are likely to be tucked away. And Nina is apparently the only idiot in the entire cast who didn’t think ahead.

_So let me hear your heartbeat, I need to know that you’re real_

_Let me hear your heartbeat, give me something to feel_

_Let me hear your heartbeat, like a choir of angels_

_Let me hear your heartbeat, before you I kneel_

So all that had happened and maybe it’s got Nina feeling some kind of way about it (about _Monet)_ almost three weeks later when he runs into him again in New York when they’re taping The View.

He and Monet hug it out in the dressing room beforehand and it’s nice, it’s _good_; it’s hardly awkward at all and why should it be? They’re both adults, _consenting_ adults, and he’s sure that wasn’t the first time either one of them hooked up with another queen after a performance.

It’s a good interview, it is, and they’re all happy with it when they wrap. It’s easy and fun banter with Meghan. Monet and Nina keep the rhythm moving, bringing Adore into the conversation from time to time when they feel she can contribute. Her responses are mature, _Adore_ is mature and Nina’s happy she’s able to show the rest of the world that new part of herself, the part that dreams of winning a Grammy and buying her mother a mansion. (And not just pizza and parties and whatever else Bianca likes to tease her for. Okay, _maybe_ Nina wouldn’t have chosen _green_ hair but it’s Adore’s aesthetic and she looks _great_, tiny and subdued and grown-up in her chair at the end of the row, cherry red lips smiling broadly.)

Nina can’t help it if he and Monet just dominate the conversation when they’re together; can’t _help_ it if they play off each other, volley back and forth easily, passing jokes and comments between them like they’ve known each other for years.

Then Monet starts leaning into him, grabbing onto his leg. They’ve always been friendly, the two of them both huggers, never hesitating to embrace one another whenever they’re in the same room, even before their hookup. But this is different, this feels... _Distinctive_. And it doesn’t take an idiot to figure out what’s changed.

They take pictures with Meghan afterwards and maybe Monet’s hand grazes Nina’s, fingertips drifting along his wrist when they’re shuffled into the narrow hallway back to the dressing room to de-drag and head their separate ways. Maybe it sends a jolt of electricity down Nina’s spine. It doesn’t mean anything. They hooked up once. It’s over. It’s fine.

“Bye, guys!” Adore sweeps her stuff into an overly ripped, safety pin decorated denim backpack and waves goodbye to them over her shoulder; she doesn’t de-drag, doesn’t change. Nina guesses that’s just Adore. He’s happy for her. He’s been working for years to make it safe for them to walk down the street in day drag and there she is doing it.

He takes a seat at his station and starts to remove his lipstick, but the deep magenta shade is new, and the makeup wipe isn’t touching it. It’s a great product; it’s not so great for Nina, who doesn’t want magenta lips for the rest of the day.

“Shit,” Nina mutters under his breath and goes back to his makeup case to search for his olive oil. It doesn’t take much of a search for him to realize it isn’t there, forgotten somewhere in the rush of packing and unpacking and living out of suitcases for months at a time. “_Shit_.”

“What’s up?” Monet asks, spinning around on his bench. Wig off, eyeliner smeared around his brown eyes. Nina thinks he’s never looked more beautiful.

Nina makes a vague circle around his mouth. “My lipstick isn’t budging, and I forgot my olive oil. Like an _idiot_…” He flops down onto his bench and grabs a fresh makeup wipe, trying once again to remove the lipstick. Maybe it’s getting lighter. Maybe. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.

Monet purses his lips, reaches into a black bag, and comes up with a jar and a handful of cotton rounds. Then he walks over to Nina and straddles the bench, facing him.

“Coconut oil,” he says simply and with a shrug at Nina’s confused expression. “It’s a solid at room temperature, but when you rub it in… Melts with your body temperature.”

Monet scoops a dollop onto his pinkie and widens his eyes.

“May I?”

Nina nods, breath catching in his throat as Monet reaches over, dabs the substance onto his mouth, rubs it in gently. He feels the solid sink into his lips, can practically feel the lipstick dissolve under the oily sheen that Monet wipes gently away with the cotton rounds. All Nina can focus on are the creases in the corner of Monet’s eyes as he works, the tip of his pink tongue jutting out from between his lips.

It can’t be more than a few minutes, but Nina feels suspended in time, stuck in stop animation as he watches cotton round after cotton round come away from his mouth in lighter and lighter shades of pink. Monet brushes on the coconut oil with the lightest of touches, lets it sit, wipes it away. Steady. Calm. Rhythmic. Nina gets the feeling they’re both enjoying this a little more than they want to admit.

“There,” Monet finally says, running his thumb once over Nina’s lips. “Good as new. And softer than that janky-ass makeup wipe would have left them.”

Maybe Nina’s lips pucker against the flesh of Monet’s thumb because Monet lets it linger on his mouth for a little too long. Maybe that’s how it _really_ starts.

Monet is kissing him again, thumb replaced by lips, hand grasping his neck, their chests pressed flush together. He tastes different than before; less like champagne and bitter regret and more like vanilla and unspoken promises.

“We have to -” Monet gasps against Nina’s neck after a few minutes but not long enough, “- finish getting out of Drag.”

“Uh-huh,” Nina responds a bit drunkenly, though this time his head is decided not spinning with champagne and the whirlwind of finishing a season of _Drag_ _Race_.

“Then...” Monet pulls back, looks Nina in the eyes, grasps his hands. “My apartment is like 20 minutes from here if you want…?”

“Hell yeah.” Nina manages a little more gusto that time, and they kiss for another ten minutes before Monet finally breaks away and says with a wink that he _has to_ untuck.

Nina’s cheeks are hot, and his heart is racing, but he’s never been so _sure_.

Yeah. That’s how it starts.

_I never thought there was a heaven til I kissed your lips, yeah_

_I was a lost soul just floating down the River Styx_

_So bring me back to life and pull me up towards the sky_

_And I don’t believe I’ve ever seen something so beautiful_

Nina’s in Toronto that Thursday and it just so happens that Monet is too. It’s not like they planned it; they did _not_ plan it, but if the scheduling gods are going to keep smiling on them, who are they to deny kismet?

Nina’s doing a show at the Opera House, and Monet is hosting a party at Cabana Pool Bar, and maybe they end up at the same hotel downtown by chance (or maybe Monet’s manager changes the reservation at the last minute after a text from Nina when he sees Monet’s tweet about Toronto. Maybe that’s how it happens. They don’t discuss it).

They don’t talk much at all. It’s late by the time Monet come down to Nina’s room, drunk on adrenaline and the promise of Nina, and they’re on an abbreviated schedule as it is.

Teeth on skin. Hands on waists. Kisses pressed to spines and shoulder blades, hips and kneecaps. They’re softer with each other now, less severe. They take their time tracing lines of muscles and veins under the skin, comparing tattoos and freckles that look like constellations.

It feels different this time. Like they’ve figured out that this isn’t a flash in the pan, one-time hookup backstage after the finale. Like there’s weight. Like there’s meaning.

Nina guesses they should probably talk about it.

But it’s four in the morning, and Monet’s arms are slung loosely across Nina’s chest, legs tangled with his under the thin hotel sheets, breath warm on his throat.

They’ll talk later.

Monet sighs a little in his sleep and Nina’s eyes grow heavy.

He falls asleep to the sound of Monet’s heart beating in time with his own.

_Can you hear my heartbeat? I need to know that you’re real_

_Can you hear my heartbeat? Give me something to feel_

_Can you hear my heartbeat? Like a choir of angels_

_Can you hear my heartbeat? Before you I kneel_

**Author's Note:**

> "blood and honey" is a series of (mostly) unrelated drabbles and one-shots of assorted characters and ships based on a table of prompts from LiveJournal. The table can be found over on my Tumblr @artificialmeggie. I welcome your thoughts and take requests here or there. Thank you!


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